Thoughts on the Watchmen movie.

[GlennSimpson]

Is ShadowDemon going to talk about how dark and terrible today's world is in every thread?

[JackDaw]

What period of time are you comparing the present with? Because in the entirety of human history there has never even once been a period without rampant moral breakdown, terrorism, various kinds of corruption, and an extensive list of other woes.

I suppose the garden of Eden might have been cushty before the serpent appeared.

Apart from that...I think those living in developed countries today have a comparatively good deal. I certainly wouldn't fancy going to dentists a couple of hundred years ago.

[Billy Batson]

The world is probably just about the brightest and least disturbed it's ever been.

This is true.

[cgh]

This is true.

Just to add: by every objective, quantifiable measure except one, we are living in the greatest time in human history. The way this is normally measured is by mortality, so deaths per capita caused by disease, famine, war, poverty and so forth.

The exception is the environment where there are measurably fewer species and less habitat as a result of human activity. In all other areas though we are living in a more peaceful, less disease-ridden, less poor world than at any other time.

Here is a short and entertaining read on this subject: http://www.spectator.co.uk/the-week/.../glad-tidings/

A lot of this is due to China pulling a billion people out of poverty and the end of the largest conflict since World War II: the Second Congo War, aka The Great War of Africa. We've never lived in a more peaceful world since - all this terrorism stuff is basically statistical noise by comparison.

Edit: I apologise for dragging this thread off-topic. I enjoyed the Watchmen movie and I too thought the ending was an improvement over the book. The whole thing had a seriously weird, cult-film vibe that I appreciated.

[dancj]

Things are demonstrably WORSE today: rampant moral breakdown, terrorism, corruption both in business and society, the list is extensive.

You'll have to expand on your "rampant moral breakdown" to explain what you mean there. IMO living in an age where child abuse and rape of women is actually the fault of the attacker rather than the victim, and where single mothers are helped rather than put in asylums and women are actually allowed to leave abusive husbands, and racism and homophobia are actually frowned upon and acted against show signs of moral improvement.

Terrorism is nothing new. 9/11 was bad, but overall there are less bombs going off now than in the 80s as far as I can tell.

Corruption in business has always been there, but more seems to be done to fight it now so it may seem worse - but that's a good thing.

Corruption in society is another one you'll have to explain because I'm not sure what you mean.

[green blogger]

Just watched it and enjoyed it as it is... It actually felt that I'm watching a movie based on a graphic novel, though I've never read any issue from the series.

It's dark and twisted, but at the end, to me it still felt like a superhero movie, but not the typical superhero movie.. Good versus evil, with both sides believing that what they are fighting for is what is right.. It did not have a happy ending and life goes on.

[BlaqRain]

I watched the Ultimate Cut a couple of nights ago. I'm no fan of Zack Snyder, but the movie is so good it made me appreciate the genius of Alan Moore. I've started reading the book again. Again.

[ROM Spaceknight]

Watchmen is another movie directed by Zach Snyder that I feel is extremely underrated (along with MOS). I was a huge fan of the original Watchmen graphic novel when I first read this in the early '90's - very gripping & pseudo-realistic look at extremely flawed & human heroes. It's definitely one of those comic series that you can read every couple of years and notice something different each time.

I feel almost the same way about the film. One of the many reasons I liked Watchmen as much as I did was because the film-makers, for the most part, kept the storyline & look/vibe/tone from the original comic, including the character's costumes. I'm pretty much a purist when it comes to film adaptations of other media (comics, novels, etc.) and Watchmen is one of the best film adaptations of a comic book I've ever seen.

The biggest difference between the series & the movie was the very ending - however, I understand that to make the movie more "cinematic" (for lack of a better word), it wouldn't really have worked to have a huge, grotesque alien splattered all over a huge metropolitan city - like in the comic....

[JBatmanFan05]

300 was infinitely better than Snyder's Watchmen IMHO.

Watchmen is just too hard to adapt IMHO. Snyder put in too much action and too much visuals. Not enough heart and there were casting choices I didn't like (Ozymandias). Ending of course was not accurate.

Sadly, this is as good as Watchmen will ever get on the screen, and Snyder squandered that chance to do it to the quality Moore did. Done right, Watchmen might have a Best Picture kind of movie. We got an actioner.

[Sandy Hausler]

I think that rarely has there been a movie where the director misunderstood his subject matter that badly.

What exactly did he misunderstand?

Sandy Hausler

[Sandy Hausler]

I enjoy it. Could be due to the fact that I don't hold the book in quite as high a regard as most others do.

That's not it. I hold the book in the highest regard, and I really enjoyed the movie.

Sandy Hausler

[Sandy Hausler]

The Ultimate Edition is hands down the second best superhero movie ever made.

OK, I gotta know. What's first?

Sandy Hausler

EDIT: Don't bother. I see from a later post that it's Dark Knight.

[CliffHanger2]

300 was infinitely better than Snyder's Watchmen IMHO.

Watchmen is just too hard to adapt IMHO. Snyder put in too much action and too much visuals. Not enough heart and there were casting choices I didn't like (Ozymandias). Ending of course was not accurate.

Sadly, this is as good as Watchmen will ever get on the screen, and Snyder squandered that chance to do it to the quality Moore did. Done right, Watchmen might have a Best Picture kind of movie. We got an actioner.

Not for nothin, I don't think you can have too much visuals in a movie or a comic for that matter. They're both primarily visual mediums, one of the problems I had with the book is the sub par art. But I think the movie is a great improvement.

[ROM Spaceknight]

Again, I completely understand & completely 100% agree with the changed ending in the Watchmen film. Cinematically, it wouldn't have worked to have had a huge, dead, bug-eyed grotesque alien suddenly appearing in in the middle of NYC & have that be the reason that the two superpowers banding together to agree & fight a common enemy (which as it turned out didn't exist) - therefore preventing a horrible war. I remember when I read this scene for the first time in the comic, I was thinking a big "WTF?!" to myself initially - and then it eventually made sense. So, if a comic reader was initially confused as to what happened here, a mainstream film audience would definitely have found this scene too confusing.

Other than the ending, however, the movie is pretty much spot-on to the comic series - right down to the alternate 1980's timeline, costumes & physical appearances of the Watchmen characters, etc. As a big comic book & movie/TV show fan, I have been turned off when watching some past film adaptations of comics - when they drastically change the uniforms and/or appearances of comic book characters (the X-men films & the execrable Daredevil & Elektra films from the 200X's are some examples of this).

I still need to go back and watch the Director's cut of Watchmen on DVD; I also have not seen the "Ultimate/Expanded?! cut" (or whatever it is) which has the "Tales of the Black Freighter" story woven into the film itself; I do have the "Tales of the Black Freighter" separate DVD, but haven't seen that yet either.

[Zero Hunter]

300 was infinitely better than Snyder's Watchmen IMHO.

Watchmen is just too hard to adapt IMHO. Snyder put in too much action and too much visuals. Not enough heart and there were casting choices I didn't like (Ozymandias). Ending of course was not accurate.
.

I will argue to my last breath that the ending of the movie with Doctor Manhattan being made the scapegoat was better than the giant squid monster in the original comic. It just made so much more sense and for a better story.